Linear television (television) channels are multicast/broadcasted to the end users as is typically the case in fixed television environments or they may be unicast to individual clients as is typically the case in mobile television environments. Linear television service must support the ability to allow users to switch between channels including the option to “channel surf”, where the user may watch just a few segments of the channel before switching channels.
It is known to provide targeted advertisements to users that are inserted in linear television content. In such systems, a client device usually receives advertisements that can be tailored to a particular user. A client based approach to targeted advertisement insertion is the most effective way to handle linear television advertisements wherein the targeted advertisements are fetched and locally inserted at the client. In a client based Advanced Advertising solution, advertisements for linear television content are downloaded from a central server and displayed to the end user based on various targeting criteria, potentially overriding existing advertisement content and/or at other positions during the linear television program. Such systems include, but are not limited to the Society of Cable Engineers (SCTE) 130 (SCTE-130) for signaling advertising information, SCTE-35 for in-band advertisement marker identification and Cable Labs ADI 3.0 for out-of-band advertisement marker identification (NPT signaling).
In many television programs an advertisement duration is unknown or variable. For example, during live sporting events, an advertisement may be played during an injury time out. In this scenario, the client device may be unaware of the duration of the time out (advertisement opportunity duration/window). Therefore, a need exists for a method and apparatus for a method and apparatus for managing targeted advertisements for a linear television service that appropriately chooses targeted advertisements when an advertisement period has an unknown duration or a variable duration.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions and/or relative positioning of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of various embodiments of the present invention. Also, common but well-understood elements that are useful or necessary in a commercially feasible embodiment are often not depicted in order to facilitate a less obstructed view of these various embodiments of the present invention. It will further be appreciated that certain actions and/or steps may be described or depicted in a particular order of occurrence while those skilled in the art will understand that such specificity with respect to sequence is not actually required. Those skilled in the art will further recognize that references to specific implementation embodiments such as “circuitry” may equally be accomplished via replacement with software instruction executions either on general purpose computing apparatus (e.g., CPU) or specialized processing apparatus (e.g., DSP). It will also be understood that the terms and expressions used herein have the ordinary technical meaning as is accorded to such terms and expressions by persons skilled in the technical field as set forth above except where different specific meanings have otherwise been set forth herein.